The invention relates to vehicle seats, particularly seats for automobiles and light trucks. The seats of this invention will provide increased occupant protection in the event of a rollover accident. Rollover accidents occur relatively slowly compared to other accidents, such as front, side, or rear impacts. Thus rollover accidents require a different response compared to conventional impact restraint systems to achieve occupant protection. Rollover occupant protection system design involves the integration of a number of components in the vehicle which must be compatible with each other. One element of the vehicle available to vehicle designers in developing effective rollover occupant protection system designs is the seat with integral restraint. One element of the vehicle that is particularly hazardous to restrained occupants is the intruding roof. This invention moves the occupant's head away from the vehicle roof automatically during a rollover.
It has been known in the art for some time, recognized by the inventors for almost ten years, that an important tool available to designers of occupant safety in a rollover, along with, for example, stronger roof structures, better occupant packaging, more effective restraint systems, active or passive rollbars and other available technology, is to dynamically move the occupant away from the roof before the roof crushes. In large vehicles such as truck cabs, there is room to move the entire seat straight down a large distance away from the roof, and several approaches for this problem have been proposed. Three concepts for accomplishing rollover protection in light passenger vehicles with power (electric) integrated seats (all-belts to seats) are identified: dynamically tilt the seat back rearward in order to effectively move the occupants head away from the roof and rearward in the vehicle, reorienting the torso-head/neck complex to a more advantageous orientation; compress the seat back and seat cushion to be smaller than their normal dimensions to increase headroom in conjunction with rollover actuated pretensioning seatbelts; under certain circumstances move the seat cushion forward or rearward or laterally to better position the occupant relative to the roof structure and/or to allow for the downward deployment of the seat back in restricted compartment space conditions
Although solutions to some of the concepts have been previously proposed, none have been implemented in light vehicles to date. The inventors believe that the reason for the lack of implementation in production power-adjustable integrated seats is that the proposed solutions do not address the requirements of powered integrated seats. The earlier proposed solutions are not compatible with the integrated, power-adjustable seats found increasingly, for example, on light passenger vehicles.
In order to make these features available, innovative solutions, that are workable and usable on modern, powered seats, must be employed. This invention provides greatly increased protection to vehicle occupants in a rollover accident by providing novel safety mechanisms that are usable in existing power-adjustable seats.